political crisis

The economic crisis continues in Greece. It was underscored by the stock market plunge in New York on May 6th. The backdrop to this is the economic crisis in the entire Euro zone. And of course the indebtedness of the US economy gets bigger by the day. It seems certain that a new financial crisis lies ahead.

In such a situation capitalism needs a capable and stable political leadership. But in the majority of the countries of the world this is missing. Along with the economic crisis of capitalism there is a political crisis. Britain cannot elect a government at the moment. Germany has a government which is near paralyzed by the anger of the working class against paying the debts of Greece. The US government is engrossed with inter party squabbling and unable to deal with the major problems it faces.

An economic crisis, a political crisis, capitalism is in a bad state. At the root of this lies the contradictions explained by Marx over a century ago. Capitalism has a crisis of over production. The working class cannot buy back all that it produces, this leaves a surplus product. Every capitalist class seeks to sell its surplus product in some other capitalist class's market. Along with this capitalism seeks to alleviate the crisis by extending credit, that is by debt. This credit, debt, allows capitalism to go further than its own limits for a time. But this cannot last. Eventually this debt, whether private or government has to be paid back. This is when major financial crises takes place and when recessions and depressions explode.

The capitalist world is in a state of extreme fragility. It is not possible to say when the next crisis which will shock and shift the mass consciousness will unfold. But unfold it will. At the same time there are the crises such as the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico which is caused by capitalism's extreme addiction to profit to the extent that it refuses to put the safety mechanisms on the oil rigs and it bribes the regulatory bodies that are supposed to make them do so.

In this situation activists have to explain that capitalism does not work. We have to organize the unorganized and organize also for mass working peoples parties based on the ideas of socialist revolution. This is the only way that the crises that capitalism now threatens can be avoided. Capitalism has forfeited the right to rule.

Sean.